


Things That Are

by Saraste



Series: Nwalin week 2019 [7]
Category: The Hobbit - All Media Types
Genre: Alternate Universe - Modern Setting, Angst, M/M, Magic, Nwalin week 2019
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-06-02
Updated: 2019-06-02
Packaged: 2020-04-06 19:49:14
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 582
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/19069480
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Saraste/pseuds/Saraste
Summary: Nori loves Dwalin like he's never loved anyone, like he'll ever loveanyone.





	Things That Are

**Author's Note:**

> Written for Nwalin week 2019, Day 7. magic / ~~science~~.  
> Beta-read by the wonderful katajainen. All remaining mistakes are my own.

Sometimes, Nori forgets himself and dreams of things that aren’t. He dreams of a summer where there isn’t one —  lost in himself and the safety enveloping him by way of Dwalin’s big arms when winter howls outside — then he blinks and is back in the present, hoping that Dwalin didn’t get caught in his sway, that he will think it a daydream, only made real by what Nori  _ is _ . He cannot ask if he did, because that would be admitting to things Dwalin doesn’t know about, things that could crash down Nori’s world. 

Because he’s been lying about who he is to Dwalin since they met, which is… nothing new, yet it is, because it’s  _ Dwalin, _ who's is quite unlike anyone Nori’s ever loved in all his long life. Sometimes he wonders if he ever really loved at all, properly and deeply, before Dwalin.

His love for Dwalin spills and overflows and Nori puts it into things that  _ are _ ; funnels it into rich soil, whispers and sings it to seeds to make them reach for the skies, makes roots strong and branches thick to catch curses, rings their house with charm-work, and hopes.

*

Nori is older than he looks.

He had lived a certain way for longer than what he cares to remember now; he always made a garden to keep those he loved safe, charmed his knitting, made a house a home, lived and loved, made sure they were well looked after and then…

...then he left, even when it had broken his heart every single time. But it would have been harder, after a time, to stay, every time. Because the world is quick and he takes the slow road. 

Then, then he had met Dwalin.

He would never leave Dwalin, never will, he knows, deep in his bones, in his veins, in the invisible tendrils of life and love and  _ magic _ tethering him to the earth, and now, to Dwalin’s heart, which has stolen his, irrevocably so. He met him and he stayed, made a house and a home with him, grew a garden to protect them, knitted to keep them warm, told Dwalin almost everything, and loves him with everything he has.

In the past, he has always left because he couldn’t stay, because bad things always happened to him, in the end, and those he loved got caught in the crossfire, and twice had been a pattern enough for him.

Yet, with Dwalin he has realized that he can’t, saw it in the mirror one morning after a shower, when he swept the fog away with a hand, and looked at his face; and saw  _ time _ .

And all because Dwalin's arms have been safety, his embrace a safe haven to ward off evil, or at least the idea of it. Nori had let him too deep into his heart even when he had known that his secrets would end up tearing them apart. Would  _ hurt _ Dwalin. Nori’s sweet Dwalin, who has been hurt enough, whose brittle, kind and shell-shocked mind (Nori is old enough to remember that word being used, likes the poetry of it more than the clinical efficiency of PTSD) would be better off without Nori’s lies, his deceit.

But Nori couldn’t have let go of him and left, even if he had wanted to.

Because Dwalin is the one he is growing old with, whose love has made him mortal, with all its joys and sorrows, and Nori has embraced it with both hands.


End file.
